¹⁵Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; ¹⁶but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.

While suffering for Christ’s name should be the means for us to see God’s blessing, the same cannot be said for suffering that we bring on ourselves through wrongdoing. We cannot shoot ourselves in the foot and then look for God’s blessing in the pain that follows! So if a person suffers as a result of his own sins against others—whether from killing or stealing, for example, or from something as innocuous as uninvited meddling in someone else’s business—he cannot translate reprisals as unjust suffering and look for God’s hidden blessing. His suffering is justified.

Having stated his caveat, Peter quickly returns to suffering that is genuinely unjust. We all, at times, suffer for doing the right thing in general, but we are focusing here on a specific kind of unjust suffering, namely as a Christian. We should not allow the world to shame us for being Christians and thus being out of step with the world. Shamers use criticism, ridicule, or judgmentalism, all designed to control others, elevate their supposed “correct” view of life, and belittle anyone who does not conform. Shaming often paints with a broad brush and assigns to everyone in a specified group the characteristics of the worst in the group.

Being a Christian puts us in the group of all Christians, which brings on us the shame of those Christians who exemplify holier-than-thou attitudes, hypocrisy, selfish behavior, lovelessness, and many other less-than-Christlike behaviors. To be sure, none of us is perfect; we all fall short in many ways. The world capitalizes on our shortcomings and puts those of us who are earnestly attempting to follow Christ in the same category as the Christians living the most egregious carnal lives. In the world’s eyes, we are no different from those who make the same claim to be followers of Christ, so we stand “guilty by association.” The line between justified and unjustified criticism is often blurred.

We must face the fact that simply being a Christian invites the world’s scorn because we are, in fact, different from the way non-believers are and their view of the world. Our response should not be to endlessly apologize for the sins of our errant brothers and sisters whose spiritual maturity is lacking, or to live in the collective shame that the world throws at us. No! We need to be about glorifying God unreservedly, and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not ashamed of us (see Luke 9:26), we should not be ashamed of Him.

Lord Jesus, I want to identify publicly with You and not be ashamed

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